And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come. ~ Mathew 24: 6-14
It’s no longer news ~ this world is spiraling out of control as we speak and write, and the love of many is waxing cold, while the planet burns. Are we finally living in the End Times ? Every generation since the time of Jesus has been convinced that the End Times were upon them, or at least coming in their lifetimes. But the planet still keeps spinning away, and the sun continues to rise every morning. When people would say to me, “Good morning,” I used to reply, “Every day that the sun comes up in the morning is a good day.” But it no longer sounds like a joke. I used to mean that I would rejoice to have another day to be alive on this glorious red and purple ~ I mean green ~ earth, and I still mean that, whether I am thinking about my own personal life, or the life of the planet. For me, of course, it is all the same whether it be simply my own personal life that might end, or whether the entire human race might end, like the dinosaurs, or all life on earth.
The problem is that there are ominous tipping points. Before every explosion of rapid change, there are accumulating tipping points that make it increasingly hard to reverse the direction or speed of change, going downhill fast. But there are not just tipping points in greenhouse warming, or glacial melting; there is also a tipping point in consciousness. That has been my biggest concern lately. I see the levels of consciousness plunging all over the world. And, the more consciousness moves downward, the faster it continues to move further down. This, of course, is how wars are started, and how a living planet dies.
All the symptoms are aligned ~ in Good Times of peace and prosperity, there is a leveling process as everyone’s lives get better, with tolerance for all. Then, in bad times of war and poverty, there is a sharpening trend as most people’s lives get steadily worse, while a small class of the wealthy and powerful get ever wealthier and more powerful, and there is less and less tolerance for anything new. Political ideology swings hard right, and everyone prepares for war. They have long since stopped bothering to pray for peace, because God died long ago (or perhaps he is just out to lunch, or bored with his world), so there is no point in praying for peace.
The most powerful players on the map are of greatest concern, because they can do the most damage if they get out of control. Yes, I am speaking mostly about the sorry United States of America, which has fallen on some very hard times lately, but I am also speaking of Russia, China, Israel, Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and many more, down to the interests of Big Oil, Big Pharma, and countless lesser Robber Barons, all the way down to that silly clown in the red hat, whose days as a loose canon are, finally and mercifully, coming to an end.
The United States has been falling fast. Has anyone noticed ? It is reaching a point of total dysfunction, and could even be on a path to Civil War. Wouldn’t that get God and the Saints laughing ! That’s a good one. Just imagine, on top of everything else, ha ha, what if the United States were to implode with another Civil War ? And where do we go from there, little wandering planet ?
A fundamental cause of the problem in the United States is that their Constitution has failed them. What we have ended up with is a plutocracy, not a democracy. The problem is just too big for most people to consider. “So, we need another economic and political solution for the United States, and for the entire world, while we are at it; so, can we get this done before lunch?” Talk about “just pop another pill . . . ”
Joe Biden’s age has caught up with him. The problem is that with increasing age there is often, or even usually, a tendency to lose all flexibility in your joints as well as in your brain. After a certain point, it becomes impossible to consider any change of any kind. Certain beliefs and attitudes get ingrained so deeply that they cannot be dislodged, no matter how much new information is forthcoming. Take his unwavering support for Israel. I don’t know if there has ever been a time since 1948 when such unwavering support made any sense, but I, for one, have lost my respect for the State of Israel long ago. It may be that, finally, most of the rest of the world is coming around to the same conclusion, but don’t expect any new ideas to percolate into old Joe’s brain any time soon, or anymore. He should have quit while he was ahead. One transitional term ~ thank you, Joe ~ good old Joe when we needed you ~ but, missing your cue to exit, stage left ~ that is a regrettable blunder. Something like guests and fish, after a few days, or politicians and diapers needing to be changed often (Mark Twain).
For the longest time, along with every other sane and rational American (a diminishing breed), I had to support old Joe because there just wasn’t any other option. To call the alternative in the red hat unthinkable gives new breadth to the concept of understatement. But old Joe has to step down. After his current vacuous rigidity over Israel and Palestine, he cannot win any more elections, and it would really tempt fate to put him up against the red hat once again.
Why do we laugh? Because the alternative to laughter is madness, chaos, and death. Or is that just the other side of laughter? I sure hope the sun comes up tomorrow morning.
